


I Need a Hero

by petricholour



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Babysitting, F/M, First Kiss, Foggy is the Child Whisperer, Foggy-Centric, M/M, Marci Stahl is a fairy princess, and the patron saint of his building
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-11
Updated: 2016-05-11
Packaged: 2018-06-07 18:54:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6820102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/petricholour/pseuds/petricholour
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Matt gets off the stool and shadows Foggy to the fridge. "I've only ever seen the oldest and gentlest nuns do that."</p><p>Foggy raises an eyebrow at him as he pours some orange soda into a glass. "Why thank you, Father Murdock. Truly the day was blessed when I took the name of Sister Mary Constance and stepped into this convent. I raised my eyebrow, by the way."</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Need a Hero

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Readerofmuch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Readerofmuch/gifts).



> This is for the lovely readerofmuch, who gave me this prompt (I got carried away a little?): Foggy being completely badass and becoming a neighbourhood legend in his own right. Maybe he does repairs or he babysits or something equally cute. Matt doesn't understand why everyone in the neighbourhood seems to know Foggy.

"Well," Foggy huffs, throwing open the door to his brand-new shoebox of an apartment. "I guess I'm all moved in." He strides over to the kitchen counter and puts down the last of the packing boxes. Matt casts his senses around the space, bemused. One of the windows is open, and as Foggy will shortly discover, has let in a pigeon that shat on the sill. The neighbour next door has terrible halitosis, and the flats upstairs and well as downstairs have (Matt counts) five children between them. Of course Foggy doesn't know any of this, and Matt hopes he doesn't find it so terrible he has to leave.

He folds up his cane and heads for the fridge, putting away the beers they bought for Foggy's housewarming. The glass is slick against his hands as he slots the bottles in, and over the sound of Foggy's mutters he hears curios being fished out and settled here and there. The first to go up on the ridiculously tiny coffee table is an ugly Babushka doll that Foggy swears was given to him in school by a hot Russian exchange student. That story is not true, and it bothers Matt that he can't tell what the origin of the doll is; he can tell when Foggy's lying but he can't ferret out what the truth is. Its paint is chipped and smells strongly of burnt plastic, and although there are a total of four dolls nestled inside each other, only two come out. Foggy spends some time disassembling and reassembling it, seemingly content.

Matt helps him unpack what he can, which mostly consists of Matt taking things out of the box and Foggy putting them away, which is frustratingly slow going, but seems to make Foggy happy.

"Ewww, is this underwear?"

"Dude, scoff not. I swear your blind ass wore a few of mine by accident in college." Matt makes an offended face, and chucks a pair of boxers at Foggy, hitting him square on the nose. "Yeah? That's not my fault, because you always snuck your laundry into mine."

Foggy does not need to know that Matt can pick out the scent of his clothes from the other side of a closed door, let alone a laundry basket; he definitely does not need to know how many clothes of Foggy's he's squirreled away over the years, indemnified against embarrassment with the excuse of being blind as fuck.

They settle down on Foggy's secondhand couch with his laptop pulled up next to the Russian dolls, watching Blade Runner again while they polish off a few beers and a pizza. The dialogues seem to run together on the little earphones, so he takes out the one in his left ear so he can lay his head on Foggy's shoulder. He lies there, half-dozing in contentment until the movie's over and Foggy nudges him a little.

"Matt, buddy, you can crash here if you want," Foggy says as they're washing up.

He shrugs nonchalantly as he says it, but the rest of his body language seems at odds. Is Foggy nervous? Maybe it's the first night in a new place, or maybe it's for old times' sake. Matt moved out of their shared apartment last week after they'd started at Landman and Zack, despite Foggy's earnest attempts to stop him. Foggy sulked at Matt for a few days while he waited for a few paychecks to start house-hunting. Matt had come along to check out every single one, feeling guilty about his own new roof-access apartment that he couldn't seem to justify without saying the words "I need to be able to stop pretending sometimes". So yeah, he wants to stay.

But something twists in his gut- he won't be able to run to someone's aid in the middle of the night if he takes up Foggy's offer to sleep on the couch that smells strongly of borax. Even though he knows what it'll be like, Foggy's snuffling a few feet away from him, the reassuring warmth of his body and the familiar pulse of his blood. It's tempting. He misses the smell of Foggy's shampoo and his off-key singing after three years of living together. He stops himself.

"Listen, the monsters under your bed are not real, there is no robot monkey loose in Hell's Kitchen and YES, you can kill a cockroach, just be firm. It can't possibly eat you."

"Not in one go, you little shit," Foggy snips half-heartedly. Matt laughs and unfolds his cane.

As Foggy drops him off downstairs, Matt pulls him in for a hug, to say sorry without actually saying anything. He draws Foggy close with both arms and puts his chin over his shoulder, grazing the side of his cheek against his soft hair. Foggy's arms tighten around him in reply. Matt recognises the emotion in his stomach as anxiety - Hell's Kitchen has only changed for the worse and people's apartments get broken into all the time, and Matt can't be there to protect him anymore, not if he's away in another part of Hell's Kitchen, not if he's ever too late to stop a mugging gone wrong because Foggy would do something stupid-brave. After a moment Matt pulls back and Foggy holds him at arm-length, just regarding him with a soft smile. Flyaways of Foggy's long blond hair catch in Matt's stubble, and fall away as the distance between them grows. It's like Foggy's going to kiss him.That's an utterly terrifying thought, so he skips away and claps Foggy loudly on the shoulder.

"Goodnight, buddy. Remember to change your sheets, and don't eat takeaway all the time. Um, brush your teeth two times every day." He bops him on top of his head and Foggy swats his hand away.

"Go away, Matt, I can be my _own_ mom."

Matt raises a hand in farewell as he makes his way to his own apartment two blocks away. Foggy stands outside the door long after Matt has disappeared from view behind a corner.

__

  
Foggy likes his new apartment. It's a little cramped, but he grew up sharing a bedroom with two siblings, and a house with four more, so he can handle this. Sharing a room with Matt and his neat habits was a luxury, so he's a little afraid he'll make this place too noisy and messy without the reminder that he needs to pick up his socks so Matt won't trip over them. But it's been more than a week now and he wakes up feeling right at home. The building is nice, and he made a round of the neighbors once; there were lots more flats with kids than anticipated, but everyone has been quiet so far. There's a window to his left that lets in the sun right around eight in the morning, which is fucking amazing. And it looks out onto an empty lot next to the building that has a plane tree growing in it. Although the tree is a little skinny and looks as likely to keel over onto his building as anything, Foggy can't help feeling like having a tree to look out onto is something only rich people do. It makes him feel very Disney indeed.

The bell rings early one morning when he's getting dressed for office. He confidently strides towards the door before he remembers he's in his boxers and quickly pulls on sweatpants under his dress shirt. He swings open the door to a very politely anxious face.

"Hi, I'm sorry to disturb you so early, I'm actually in 6B, upstairs? I have two kids, and the older one left the door open and the cat got out and we're looking everywhere for her -" The man has a pleasant face, with really large eyes that give him a very doleful look. He has long hair tied up with a scrunchie, he clearly ran out in a hurry. "Would you just - mind going with Fae to look through the building?" He reaches behind himself and seems to magically pull out a seven year old girl from behind, identical down to the quivering, messy mop of brown hair. "I can't leave the baby alone, and the other apartment on our floor's locked - the guy works a night shift, I think?"

Foggy quickly shuts the door behind him and steps out into the corridor, struggling to remember his name. "That's okay-er- "

"Spencer, Finn. Her name is Fae, say _hi,_ Fae. Mr Foggy's gonna help look for Bentley okay?" Foggy's very abashed that Finn remembered his name while he couldn't do the same. He squats down to Fae's level and holds out his hand for her to shake.

"You okay to come with me, kiddo?"

The kid looks cautious but not scared, and he says, "You know, my sister had a cat. His name was Boogie, and he was very fat and he was the most lactose intolerant cat I've ever met. He couldn't eat cheese without throwing up. Does Bentley do that too?"

"No, Bentley eats everything," Fae replies. "He's like a hoover," she adds after a moment's consideration.

"Cool, let's go get him. Where'd you think he went?" Foggy pockets his apartment keys as he eases down the stairs with the little girl in the way she points. They don't have to go very far, there's a spooked cat tightly wedged beside an ornamental flowerpot on the third floor. The cat struggles wildly when its picked up, unable to recognize Fae in its panic, and Foggy can see she's verging on tears as she's forced to drop it for the second time.

"Hey, tell you what. Let's do it together - you press the button for the elevator, and when it's here, you call for me. I grab Bentley and we go straight up. Mash the lift doors closed as fast as you can okay?" She nods, feeling better with something to do. The cat is backed away now, wailing in despair, but as soon as the elevator dings and Fae yells 'Foggy!', Foggy grabs the cat from behind, keeping its flailing limbs pointing straight away from himself (thanks to Boogie and his countless escape attempts at the vet) and dashes into the elevator with it. Fae slams the button and Foggy lets the cat go as soon as the doors close. When the doors open on the sixth floor, the cat runs straight into 6B. Fae follows.

Finn treats him to breakfast despite his protests, which is awesome because he was just going to heat up last night's pasta and hope for the best. There are waffles, and he's introduced to a two year old named Logan who like to point at things with spoons. "Abeebee," he insists, pushing a shard of buttered toast towards Foggy.

"Thanks, Logan." Foggy grins and pops it into his mouth. It turns out that Finn is a single parent who's been homeschooling Fae ever since his partner divorced him and left him struggling with finances. He works from home as a graphic designer (“Oh my god, that's so cool!" Foggy enthuses) and is looking for another job.

"The only thing is, my next interview is at this ad agency on Saturday, and my regular babysitter isn't available at that time, and I just. Don't know." He sighs and scrubs a hand over his face. Foggy, sitting there in his dress shirt and pajama pants, feeling full of breakfast and quite invincible after rescuing a lost tabby, volunteers before he knows it.

"I'll do it."

"Really?"

"Totally! I could watch Fae and Logan on Saturday, no biggie. L and Z is crazy but we're - I, I'm unimportant enough to get a half off on Saturdays. Free of charge, of course," he hastens to add, noticing that Finn looks interested but hesitant. "I was job hunting until recently, too, it's crushing. Us little folks should stick together."

Finn flashes him a grateful smile and turns to his kids. "So whaddaya think, guys?"

  
\--

  
Matt and Foggy hate working at Landman and Zack, but neither of them ever says it. Foggy wonders which of them will crack first. Will it be Matt, who sat up on his dorm bed in the darkness running his fingers over the books again and again for that _summa cum laude,_ or whether it'll be him, the second Nelson in the family ever to hold a white-collar job, on the fast track to a corner office instead of a corner hardware store. It crashes down on him again as they slump into their cabin after sitting in on a private settlement between a powerful pharmacist and their customers dying of undisclosed side-effects.

Matt sighs, "Jesus Christ." Foggy hums in assent, not commenting on the blasphemy.

Matt thumps his cane down hard on his desk, an outburst of physical rage Foggy got used to in college. The two of them may have lost a few mugs because Matt broke them in a fit of rage or two. It used to surprise Foggy until it didn't anymore.

"Calm down, buddy. It's over." He says it half to himself.

"I hate working here. _I hate it_ ," Matt fervently whispers. "Can't we do something - "

"Without endangering our jobs? No. It sucks, but you can't."

Matt reaches down into his desk drawer and pulls out a familiar volume, cracking it open to the right page purely by muscle memory. " _We must dissent from the indifference_ ," he reads softly, running his index and middle fingers over the dots. " _We must dissent from the apathy, we must dissent from the fear, the hatred and the mistrust_."

Foggy looks hard at him for a minute before he speaks up. "I'm not sure if you're accusing me of being apathetic? Or indifferent?"

Matt sets his face into a scowl. "Why won't you at least consider the possibility of helping the Afridis? Look, what if we help them write a petition, or maybe reach out to them, think of something!"

"We cannot betray attorney-client privilege, Matt", Foggy intones, already knowing what Matt's going to say. He pushes on. "Sometimes heroism is an about whether you can afford to be a hero. I've... got too much hanging onto me right now to risk my skin."

He looks straight into Matt's glasses, even though it's useless; he hopes something conveys itself to him. The air in the room is heavy with unspoken things - Jack Murdock's college fund, won by risking his son's future, Foggy's aunt, too young yet to suffer from hereditary Alzheimer's and having to move back into his mom's cramped house, Foggy's college degree hanging on the wall of his tiny bedroom, Hell's Kitchen outside, slowly oozing in the summer heat - and Matt looks away.

 

\--

  
Saturday is a relief when it comes. He leaves exactly at lunchtime to go pick up Fae and Logan, right from under Marci's raised eyebrow and Matt's puzzlement. "Since when do lawyers who want to actually keep their jobs leave their firm exactly at closing time?" drawls Anthony Burgess, the attorney handling the pharmacy company accounts, standing right outside the elevators with his devoted assemblage of followers. They all titter. Foggy keeps his lips sealed tight and walks home with his head down.

"Foggy!" Fae yells happily when he opens the door to 6B. Finn is just pulling on his shoes and gives Foggy some hurried instructions before he sweeps his daughter into his arms for a kiss goodbye. Foggy wishes him good luck and closes the door behind him.

For the next few hours Fae and Logan keep him busy. But it's an innocent busy-ness, coloring with Fae while he jigs Logan on his knee. It's comforting; once unexpectedly bringing a lump to his throat when he find himself in the kitchen texting his sisters on the group chat and having all of them chorus in with exclamatory happiness and nostalgia. ("Do you remember when you were supposed to be watching Melissa and she pierced her ears?""And how calm you were taking me to the emergency room when I broke my arm sliding down the stairs?" “Gosh, every semester break you'd be tutoring someone for the SATs?" There are a lot of emojis.) He smiles and squares his shoulders. He can totally handle Logan wanting to eat Fae's crayons, and Fae wanting to see how far she can push Foggy before he lets her watch TV. Bentley curls up near the baby when he tires himself out.

  
\--

  
Foggy babysitting the kids becomes a semi-regular thing. Finn is generous with his food and somehow (correctly) suspects that it keeps Foggy from sinking into whatever black hole he carries home from work. Its more often these days since Finn got the job, and Foggy can't help but feeling a little shitty that he's assuaging his guilt by hanging out with his neighbour's kids, but Finn always promises that he'll design Foggy's business cards for when he gets his own law firm. It's sweet. Soon, word gets around, and the couple downstairs asks if Foggy would mind watching their kids while they go out for a long-overdue date night. Noor and Farhan are first-generation Pakistanis starting up their own catering business in Hell's Kitchen, which is awesome because they reward him with biryani and rice pudding whenever he babysits their twins and four-year old.

Mariam always announces, "Foggy uncle is here," very solemnly whenever he comes over, and continues to suffix -uncle no matter how much he insists she call him Foggy.

"Oh, it's our tradition to show respect to our elders with a title. Also Uncle means you're assumed to be a relative of mine," Noor explains apologetically. She continues to scribble very quickly in Urdu even as she keeps an eye on her twins. “Besides, it makes sense to her because she can _see_ that you're a grown-up. We grew up like that, but I can tell her to stop if it bothers you?"

"Nah, it's cool."

Noor, like Finn, always persuades Foggy to stay back a little longer, regaling him with tales of things lost in translation, and unfailingly sends him home with a Tupperware of dry fruits from Karachi. He ends up meeting the Khans' extended family when they come over from Jersey. They all try and set him up with all the nice white girls they know because Foggy is a nice white guy (as Farhan's uncle puts it), and there is more food than is humanly possible to eat. The affection in the room is overwhelming. Farhan's cousin exchanges business cards with him, and Noor confides to him later that her sister-in-law thinks he's cute.

 

  
\--

  
its no time at all before the entire building knows Foggy Nelson of 5B. He's not sure how that happened, but in-between babysitting and opening doors for people, Foggy manages to make the acquaintance of everyone, including the guy next door everyone else avoids because of his halitosis.

A package gets delivered to his door by mistake one day. It says on top that the recipient's address is 5B, but the name scrawled on top isn't his. "Stephen McMahon", he reads as he knocks on the door of 5C, hoping Stephen's not terrible. Stephen turns out to be a tiny guy with the worst breath ever, but he's so happy to get his package that he absentmindedly waves Foggy in and immediately starts unwrapping it. Foggy's mouth falls open when he takes in the surroundings - almost every available surface is covered in potted plants, turning the flat into a greenhouse. Plants trail over the coffee table and struggle to fit on the kitchen shelves alongside the condiments. It smells green and wet and faintly mineral, like a miniature jungle. 

"Your place is fucking amazing, dude." Foggy gushes.

Stephen blinks owlishly at him, as if to try and remember who he's supposed to be. "Thanks," he shrugs, and finishes undoing the packaging to reveal a tiny orchid. Foggy creeps closer to coo over it as Stephen cradles it in his hands like a newborn kitten. Foggy notices that there's dirt in his cuticles although his touch is very gentle. He transfers the orchid into  complicated hanging pot wrapped around with bits of laf mold and wood pieces. It takes a lot of time but its fascinating to watch. While he's hanging about Foggy coaxes Stephen into talking, and he maintains a safe distance while Stephen shows him how he converted the bedroom into a sunroom for some of the more delicate plants. There are more humidifiers than he's ever seen outside a store. Stephen sleeps on a futon, quite happily, it seems, and Foggy's surprised when he gets sent home with a cactus in a coffee mug. It has pink flowers, and Stephen forbids him to ever Google anything related to plant care.

"You come straight to me to ask any questions. Anything else and you might just kill that _mammalaria_."

Foggy's still stuttering his thanks when the door closes in his face. It turns out that Stephen also trades in exotic plants, so he gets a _lot_ of mail. Every wrong delivery ends in another plant acquisition for Foggy, and soon enough, the window sill in his bedroom is populated with various blobs of green. Stephen trades phone numbers with Foggy, who saves it under 'Samwise Gamgee' and a plant emoji.

  
\--

  
He wasn't expecting Marci today, but here she is, with a real, actual Cosmopolitan in one hand and her heels in the other. Foggy feels his mouth opening and closing like a fish. "H - how?"

"Shut up and move aside, Foggy Bear." Marci stops short after taking four steps into his apartment. "Why are there _children_ here?" she asks in a horrified whisper. "Quick!" She whirls around and pushes her (real, actual) cocktail glass into his hand, Foggy grapples at the thin stem while vodka sloshes over onto his Columbia sweatshirt. "They can't see - they can't - listen, I'm going to go."

"What - " Foggy starts, utterly perplexed.

Where Marci had swanned in thirty seconds ago, she's now executed a U-turn, quickly wriggling into her heels and trying to make a run for it. "I am in no condition to be around kids right now, I'm a terrible example, Foggy", she mumbles, making a woebegone face at him as her hand slips from the door handle for the second time. A drunk Marci late on a Sunday afternoon in a killer dress and high heels is unusual, even for her. Their relationship isn't at its best right now, but Foggy suspects at least half of the blame goes to how shitty Landman and Zack makes everyone feel, Marci not least of all. Underneath her veneer of acquired WASP-yness and hard-lacquer smile, Marci still remains the person who joined as many volunteer services as she could physically manage while also keeping it a secret. ("Thomas Hobbes said that the reputation of ruthlessness is also power," she mused once, smoking a cigarette in his dorm room wearing nothing but an old baseball t-shirt of his. "This is fucking law school, not Miss Universe.")

He lays a hand gently on the door to stop her from opening it. "Okay. We need to sit down." He steers her towards the lone kitchen stool and makes her take her heels off, passing unnoticed by Sara and Fae, who have their heads deep within a massive, fold-out coloring book Foggy bought at a discount store.

He stows the (real, actual) Cosmopolitan in the fridge, shelving the question of how the fuck she navigated the sidewalks of Hell's Kitchen with a drink in her hand for later. Marci looks raw upon closer inspection. Nothing as obvious as red-rimmed eyes, but there's an air of anguish hanging about her. She gulps down the glass of water he pushes towards her, as he asks tentatively, "Is it the Holster case?"A minuscule nod. "Let me guess, an 'informal' lunch on Sunday over talk of turning witnesses hostile?"

Marci straightens her back and rolls her shoulders in lieu of a reply. It's enough. Holster Biotronics manufactures dialysis machines that have directly contributed to the deaths of no less than eight patients. One of whom was a teenager. Marci's working under Burgess on the case ever since Foggy got bumped lower down the ladder to cases of account fraud. She's rising fast in the firm, but clearly at great personal cost. They stay silent awhile, Marci downing a second glass of water while Foggy rummages up an extra pair of fuzzy slippers he swears up and down are a relic of Matt's Columbia days.

She asks if she can use his shower, and Foggy sits down with the girls to join in on the colouring. When she comes out, she looks put together, as if she's cinched the corners of herself tight. "Ooh, whatchay'alldoin'?" She breathes, and the two girls' heads snap up and their mouths fall open slightly. Foggy gets it. Marci stands there looking utterly breathtaking in a pair of Foggy's old sweats and her hair falling in ringlets over her shoulders.

Mariam immediately turns to Foggy to solemnly ask "Foggy uncle, is this your wife?" "He wishes, honey," Marci replies, folding herself neatly onto the floors."But why would I be?" "Because you match," comes Fae's reply, and she sits up on her knees to hold up a handful of Foggy's hair in one hand and Marci's in the other to compare." Encouraged, Mariam too leans in to tentatively touch a curl. And Marci, god bless her, looks like a completely different person as she charms Mariam into her lap, and even gets offered a crayon. Fae declares, "You look like my Barbie."

Foggy is soon discarded utterly as an unattractive and unworthy playmate as Fae decides to do Marci's hair while Mariam watches the proceedings. Marci is still held together, but in a completely different way, letting herself get carried away by enthusiasm as she helps the girls unpack her entire handbag and messily apply some of her lipstick on Foggy. She applies tiny dots of lipstick to Fae's cheeks and teaches Mariam to braid Foggy's hair. They spray themselves silly with a tiny bottle of Marci's perfume, and Foggy's apartment begins to smell like the inside of an expensive boutique.

It's one of the best days he's ever had, and after Noor and Finn have picked up their respective charges, Marci pins Foggy to the wall with a heated look. There isn't much talking after that.

  
\--

  
Because Foggy's place is a natural candidate for hosting play-dates, his mother starts complaining when he cancels three Sunday visits in a row.

"Franklin - ," she says and Foggy groans. " - you're too young to be an empty nester."

"What can I tell you? I miss it. The puke on my shirt, the unidentifiable stains on the carpet, the sheer panic of finding them crawling and putting hair into their mouths, its waaaay more thrilling than my job."

Over the line, he can hear his mother soften. "You always were the kindest of my children."

"Mom! Aren't you not supposed to say shit like that?"

"So what. Everyone always relied on you, did you know? Wanda and Zoe and Nelly were older than you but didn't you ever wonder why all our relatives always wanted you to look after the kids?"

"Cz, I'm a pushover and I worked for free?" Foggy snorts. He leans back against the kitchen counter and wiggles his bare toes.

"No, because you were special." "Aww, mom!" "I'm not just saying that! You weren't too hard on your younger cousins but you had a strange knack for getting your way with them. Every single time one of them messed up, they'd always come and apologize to us before we even knew something had happened. It was like magic.And nothing was ever a secret in that house, what with us packed in -"

"End to end, yeah. You could hear a mouse fart causehis ass was in your face. Thanks mom, I appreciate you saying that."

Jackie Nelson huffs a laugh. "That's why I pushed you hard, Foggy. I wanted you to get out of Nowhere on Nowhere Street in Nowheresville."

"Didn't you want me to be a butcher?" he deflects. She tells him not to be silly, that was just a joke. He's a little taken aback by her honesty. Foggy doesn't remember his mother ever complaining about their situation, no matter how much she had epic screaming matches with his father, his aunt or his grandmother. It made sense now, thinking about it, that her loyalty ran deeper than her bitterness. Things are tough at home right now; his father's considering shutting Nelson's Hardware, his aunt Molly is rapidly deteriorating under early-onset Alzheimer's, which means his parents have opted to have her live with them because they can't afford hospice care. His youngest sister graduating from high school this year. Every ball is up in the air, and Foggy's one of them. he cannot afford to drop down.

She breaks in on his thoughts. "Oh, Lydia's daughter's doing real well in pre-law. She said Layla wanted to talk to you this weekend about Columbia. Maybe you could Skype her?"

"Sure mom," Foggy smiles.

  
\--

  
When Matt rings his doorbell on a Sunday afternoon, it's been nearly two months since his last visit. Things have been a little tense between them, with both him and Matt feeling shitty around the edges but not being able to do anything about it. Matt looks up dramatically when he opens the door (he's holding his glasses loosely in his hands, Foggy notices) and immediately frowns.

Foggy steps aside to let him into the flat and as Matt folds up his cane he asks, without turning towards Foggy "Do I smell ...poop? Are things going _that_ badly without me?"

Foggy bursts into a laugh, glad to have some of the tension leak out of him. "No man, I'm babysitting the twins, one of them had a diaper incident."

Matt grimaces. "Ohhh. I do not miss the home."

Foggy heads back to where he has Zayed's soiled diaper spread out on the couch and quickly disposes of it. "Hey wait, I know we kinda agreed not to talk about it, but you must've been around little kids a lot in the orphanage, right?"

"Yeah, I was," Matt agrees, sitting down beside the Sara, the other twin, while trying to keep his glasses out of her grasp. "They kinda drove me up the wall though, with the crying and the shrieking and the poor personal hygiene. I never had the kind of superhuman patience it takes to manage kids." He cocks his head in Foggy's direction, seeming to notice something. Foggy's finished changing Zayed's diaper and sets him down next to Sara. "... Which you seem to have."

"What? Oh, yeah. Big family, seven siblings, infinite cousins. You remember."

"Christmas at your place is insane."

"Totally." Matt sits tucked into the sofa next to a pair of twins in fuzzy onesies, both of whom are falling over themselves to grab at either his cane or his glasses, or, failing that, just various parts of him. Matt squirms sideways to avoid squishing them with a panicked expression on his face. Sara gains victory over the cane and then immediately drops it to the floor. "Gah!" she exclaims. Matt makes an aborted sound like he's about to scold her, but then bends down to pick it up. Lightning-fast, Sara grabs a fistful of his hair. Delighted squeals fill the apartment as Matt tries to disentangle himself as gently as possible and failing spectacularly.

In the chaos, Sara manages to snag a leg over Matt's neck, like a baby hobgoblin hitching a ride. Matt cries out pitifully, "Foggy, help!" Barely stifling a laugh, Foggy slides his fingers into Matt's hair under Sara's grip and eases her hand away. Sara immediately puts the offending fist in her mouth, and Foggy hops back towards the kitchen counter to grab her pacifier to stop himself from dwelling too much on how soft Matt's hair felt.

  
\--

  
Eventually, Matt and Foggy throw in the towel and quit L and Z. It’s uglier than they anticipated. He's already broken up with Marci by this point, even though they're both slightly mad at themselves for why it had to turn out this way, and why they couldn't stay together; somewhere down the line, Marci and L and Z became a package deal, and Marci (even though Foggy understood it only later) was sitting and biding her time. No whimpering exit for Marci - she was laying a long, long fuse to the firm without even realizing she was doing it. Foggy's a little ashamed by the thought that he may have to ask his parents for money. He may have to move in with Matt, if Matt allows it. He stuffs those questions down and resents Marci for being stronger.

Thirteen bagels fit into his box, and by unspoken agreement they head to Foggy's place to drink pity beer in the afternoon and stoically pretend they don't feel like shit.

After his third beer, a pink flush is riding high on Matt's cheeks as he slips further and further down the back of the sofa till he's basically horizontal, his toes wriggling underneath Foggy's thigh. He's making little shushing noises as Foggy groans with his head in his hands. "Hooooow am I gonna support myself now, Murdock, and these kids? Jesus! The kids." He looks up at the ceiling, spreading his hands.

Matt frowns as though he's remembering something."They're not your kids, Foggy. Besides," he points out while driving his toes deeper into Foggy's flesh, "now that you're unemployed you can watch them all the time, maybe start up a proper day-care."

Foggy groans. "I love the kids but I will shoot myself if I have to tell my mom I ate my Columbia degree to start up _Daddy Day Care_ instead." Matt doesn't know, but Foggy's too buzzed to explain the whole flowchart of causations and relations to him. He settles for getting up off the couch and extracting some of Noor's saffron-flavored rice and haleem from the fridge. Matt sits up with interest, his head turned towards the sound. "Yep, you heard right. At least I won't starve even if I'll disappoint my mother by settling firmly in the same rut I grew up in - this is, indeed, the best Pakistani food you will ever eat, buddy. Noor made this."

Matt makes noises of amazement and pleasure as he chews his way through almost the entire container, and Foggy happily lets him have his fill; Matt seems to hate most food, complaining about how his blindness makes him vulnerable to crappy shit, and Matt could do with some of the genuine happiness that seems to be lighting his face from within. "Noor has the hands of a goddess."

"Tell her that yourself tomorrow, oh - " He thumps his face down onto the counter. " You know the only reason they probably didn't think I was a creepy pedophile is because I had a job? And now?"

"You're talking nonsense. You'd make a wonderful husband and a father."

Foggy makes a face and a vague hand gesture. "I'm gesturing as to how that's a non sequst- sequitur."

"Babysitting is heroic. Okay. And maybe it’s your true calling."

Foggy doesn't answer that. He's not sure where to begin. He'd rather not interrogate why it feels like an indulgence and like giving up at the same time, or why he likes doing it so much while he also feels like he's repeating classic Nelson family history - lose the steady job, start schlupping from one odd gig to another. Why didn't he see this coming? Matt interrupts his train of thought by feeling out for his arm.

Foggy mutely offers it and Matt squeezes it reassuringly. "Listen, we're gonna be fine. We'll figure it out. We are the best damn avocados in Hell's Kitchen, the very, very best." He slides his kitchen stool closer to Foggy's, and Foggy helps out by hooking his foot into it and pulling it closer. Okay, that's too close now. Matt is silent, as if he's forgotten what motivational wisdom he was about to spout with his arm around Foggy's shoulder, and Foggy tries not to breathe too much. It's the middle of the afternoon on a Wednesday, and the leaves on the plane tree rustle in the wind. It would be so easy to do this, Matt thinks, he's so curious to find out what Foggy's lips feel like. He knows already what they'll taste like because his own mouth will probably taste the same. Foggy's eyes slip closed. They jump apart when the doorbell rings, and Matt sits frozen on the spot, his heart thumping wildly. Foggy springs out of his chair and wrenches the door open, with an irritated "What?" only to discover Finn at his door.

"Foggy! Oh thank god, I didn't know if you'd be home and I rushed out without my cellphone so - wait, is someone here?" He cranes his neck to look past Foggy.

"Oh yeah, that's my," Foggy clears his throat. "my friend Matt."

Finn gives an aborted wave at Matt before Foggy corrects him, saying, "He's blind. Uh, Matt, this is Finn, my upstairs neighbour."

"Hi."

"Hey."

"So what's up?"

"I took an off from work today cause Logan's running a fever." Foggy makes a noise of concern. "Yeah, and he's suddenly gotten pretty bad? I think I'll take him to the emergency room, but someone needs to watch Fae."

"Oh my god, of course. What's happening?"

"It's terrifying, he has these little spasms that keep coming and going, Logan's pediatrician is not in the clinic, she's gone to some conference and Fae... Fae's just sobbing because she's scared too, and so am I." Finn looks up at Foggy with his huge eyes, and Foggy sweeps him into a hug. Finn's hands come up to grab at the back of his shirt briefly before letting go. He pulls Foggy out of the flat by his hand and Foggy tosses an "I'll be back" to Matt over his shoulder. He doesn't have time to parse the complicated expression on his face before the door swings shut.

Finn was right, it is scary to see a human being that tiny that miserable and confused about what is happening. Logan is keening non-stop and Fae is stormy and sobby. Foggy scoops her up into his arms and tries to hush her, but she keeps reaching out to grab for Finn, who absentmindedly kisses her hands and repeats "Okay, okay," to himself like a calming mantra as he hikes a nappy bag onto his shoulder and checks that Logan is firmly strapped in.

Foggy leaves Fae with Matt while he helps flag down a cab for Finn. He pays the cabbie upfront, knowing Finn is too anxious right now to count change. "Call me  _immediately_ if you need help, Finn."

When he gets back to the apartment it is quiet. Fae and Matt are sizing each other up, Matt with an unsure half-smile hovering over his face and Fae hiccuping like a metronome, undecided whether she feels like having another cry or not. She's sitting on the couch, while Matt towers over her on the kitchen stool in his dark glasses and suit. Foggy strategically gets between them and flops onto the floor in front of the couch. He grabs the Babushka doll from behind him and starts taking one out of the other.

"You know", he starts, laying each half body and half head side by side, "that these are called nesting dolls, because they live inside each other, and each one holds the other one safe inside like a nest. That's kinda like a family. See? This is Finn, your dad, this is you, and this, the littlest one, is Logan. You all take care of each other, but sometimes you have to separate." He quickly joins up the halves into individual dolls. "But that doesn't mean you can't always be back together, right?" Fae nods jerkily.

She points at the remaining fourth doll, the one that doesn't open up, and says "That's you, Foggy."

Foggy holds it up proudly next to his face. "Yes, this is me, honestly, this is so me. Looks all right except the paint's smudged, the artist messed up the left eye and it rattles - " he gives it a shake " - because of all its inner demons. You are wise beyond your years, Fae. Would you like some soda?" 

With that, he leaves her to it; her hiccups are more spaced out, and she's stopped looking like she wants to cry. Matt gets off the stool and shadows Foggy to the fridge. "I've only ever seen the oldest and gentlest nuns do that."

Foggy raises an eyebrow at him as he pours some orange soda into a glass. "Why thank you, Father Murdock. Truly the day was blessed when I took the name of Sister Mary Constance and stepped into this convent. I raised my eyebrow, by the way." He pours two more glasses of soda to keep himself from blurting out why they're not gonna talk about what almost happened before Finn rang the doorbell, and pushes a glass towards Matt. "Drink. Bond. Follow me."

"Fae, this is my best friend. His name is Matthew but I call him Matty." He pushes down on Matt's shoulder so that he takes the hint to sit down cross-legged on the carpet at eye-level with Fae. "Matt is really special - he can name all my plastic dinosaurs without looking at them."

"Really?"

"Really. Wanna test him to see if he can do it?" Foggy quickly fetches his packing box from L and Z, scooping up his dinosaurs from between the bagel crumbs. He scatters them all over the floor and tell Fae to choose a random one and give it to Matt.

"Shut your eyes, how will I know you're not looking?" she protests, holding an orange Brontosaurus away from Matt's reach. Matt's mouth opens but he can't seem to say anything.

"That's because he's blind", Foggy says plainly.

Fae's eyes widen, and she seems a little upset at the idea. Matt had once told him one of the reasons he hated being at the orphanage was because other kids always said his eyes were freaky, the way they didn't look at anything despite looking perfectly normal. Foggy adores every pore and cuticle of Matt, but he gets it. Fae needs to be cool around Matt, so he talks Matt into taking his glasses off and having him open his eyes slowly.

To be very honest he kind of personally loves it when Matt takes his glasses off, and it reminds him off all the times Matt has taken his glasses off because he somehow intuited it made Foggy more amenable to doing what Matt wants, so he waits with bated breath at Matt takes his round glasses off and looks at him first. His heart jumps. Its nothing, it's just Matt, he tells himself, who he's basically walked in on when he's pooping, but there's something coy about him doing this.

Fae looks hard at his face eventually deeming him to be all right. She shoves the brontosaurus at him.

"Brontosaurus." Matt answers.

The next.

"Stegosaurus."

"Triceratops."

Her delight is infectious; she really thinks Matt is magic. For Foggy, the urge to kiss Matt is overwhelming at this point. Matt's fingers slip carefully over the moulded plastic and the names come easily to him because it was Foggy who taught him what each dinosaur felt like in 3D; Matt even made up names for them - like the T-Rex he's holding right now called Scooby. Fae really takes to Matt, and Matt, equally warmed by her acceptance, answers all the questions she comes up with. She spends a lot of time examining his phone, and is utterly delighted when he reveals that he has some audio books they could listen to right now.

"Are you sure Fae is ready for Thurgood Marshall?" Foggy teases.

Matt gives him a sardonic look but admits he's currently listening to Isabel Allende, so Foggy downloads the first Harry Potter book for Fae to listen to, because this is an important time in a human being's life and as an adult blessed with taste, he does have responsibilities, thank you very much. He turns the volume on his laptop to maximum and presses play; it's Fae's first time listening to Hedwig's theme and Foggy can't stop watching her face at first. And Matt's. His heart is so full of love.

A couple hours later, Fae has fallen asleep, curled up on the floor with her head in Foggy's lap while Matt and Foggy are getting detentions to the Forbidden Forest. When he notices the limp weight on his lap, he pauses the book and sighs, "I think I'm a Hufflepuff."

Matt takes off his earbuds too and turns to regard Foggy. "No you'd probably be one of those really tender Gryffindors, like Neville Longbottom. You're quietly brave, I think."

"Really", Foggy wonders aloud and picks at the carpet. "I've never really been that brave at doing things I should."

"We stuck it to the man today."

"Sure, and the future ahead looks beautifully unemployed."

"Foggy, listen. You are brave and kind and patient and capable, and I will open a Nelson and Murdock Day Care with you, so help me god, if it comes down to that. You'll eventually train me into having nun-like skills of calming crying toddlers and changing nappies and things. We'll be neighbourhood legends."

Foggy just grins goofily at him, feeling a warmth rise in his chest. Matt looks so earnest, and he doesn't even think for a second before he does the bravest thing he's ever done in his life and presses his lips against Matt's. Matt kisses him back, very, very gently, with the smallest _chuu_ kissing noise. It is so tender Foggy thinks his heart might break. Matt brings his hands up to frame Foggy's face, to push through the hair at his temples and gather it in two fistfuls. He can't help the groan that escapes him at the feeling; Matt's almost rubbing the strands between his fingers.

They kiss more sloppily this time, with Foggy opening his mouth to capture Matt's lower lip between his. The surprised noise he makes is as satisfying as being able to finally taste his full mouth, and Foggy has an out-of-body moment of pure amazement where he imagines birds settling on the tree outside his bedroom window to sing songs of joyfulness. Matt tastes like orange soda and Foggy finally has an excuse to card his fingernails through the short hair at the nape of his neck, reveling in the sensation of soft, short bristles against the pad of his fingertips. Matt gives a satisfied sigh and touches the tip of his tongue to Foggy's mouth. Then they somehow lose all dignity, grabbing at each other's shoulders, hardly breathing except for the other's breath. Fae stirs at all the movement, and Foggy pulls away from Matt, shocked at himself for making out with his best friend with an actual child in his lap.

"Wait _right there_ ," he instructs Matt before he bundles her up and settles her into bed. He's just turning the lights off so that only the faint glow of the evening sun falls on the bedclothes. She looks peaceful.

Soon, he will get a call from Finn, who sounds relieved to tell him that they were only febrile seizures, which can be hereditary in children and he'll be back home in a while. But for now, as the day draws to a close, Foggy lingers by his bedroom door and looks at Matt sitting on the floor besides the couch, his hair rumpled beyond decency and surrounded by plastic dinosaurs. Matt senses him looking and turns his head to smile at him. _Can you believe we're_ \- hangs in the air between them, and right now he feels infinitely brave.

**Author's Note:**

> Also a shoutout to the wonderful senor-foggy-law, who is the kindest beta reader ever.


End file.
